Glocalization Marketing Strategy Of Mc Donald's Case Study: Turkey

4. Limitations 4.1. Limitations of the Statistical Data It should be noted that there were limitations in obtaining statistical data from Mc Donald’s Turkey and actually it was not easy goal to obtain statistical data from the Mc Donald’s Istanbul Headquarters. First of all, Mc Donald’s is a multinational corporation and there is information which is quite confidential. For that reason, the statistical data was received after having 4 phone calls, 2 exchanged emails and 1 personal visit. Mc Donald’s Istanbul Headquarters hardly accepted to provide information regarding their sales and their profit since 2000 in Turkey. They accepted to give also numbers of their Turkish food suppliers, numbers of their branches, numbers of the cities where they operate, numbers of the specific products that has been produced only in Turkey in the world since 2000. Consequently, there were information which they refused to provide. For example, they refused to provide the percentage of the sales of these specific products due to confidentiality even though it was asked from them 3 times. Secondly, the statistical data that was provided mostly based on certain years and this limited the analysis. Nevertheless, the data was still very useful and it allowed me to make comparisons between years. The data from 2012 to 2016 was significantly detailed and it made the comparisons much easier. 4.2. Limitations of the Questionnaires It was not an easy task to conduct questionnaires at the Mc Donald’s Turkey restaurants in Istanbul due to several factors. First of all, only 3 of the 5 Mc Donald’s restaurants (Başakşehir, Sultanbeyli and Cevahir) easily gave permission to conduct the questionnaires in their restaurants. Kadıköy and Taksim branches did not allow the questionnaires to be conducted in their premises. Even though, Mc Donald’s İstanbul Headquarters had all the information regarding the thesis, these branches insisted on getting signed documents from the headquarters. Due to time limitations, the questionnaires were conducted right in front of the Taksim and Kadıköy branches doors where all the customers enter and exit the restaurants. This created limitation to the questionnaires because many people did not easily accept to fill the questionnaires on the street. Secondly, it should be noted that 286 Mc Donald’s Istanbul customers were asked to fill the questionnaires and only 100 of them decided to answer and become a respondent for this work. Many respondents who have relatively higher education levels decided to fill the 8

questionnaires. Hence, there are mainly respondents who have rather high school or graduate education levels. Third of all, there were limitations with the female respondents since many of them decided not to fill the questionnaires. For that reason, %43 of the respondents are females and %57 are males. Fourth of all, there were cases with some respondents that filled the questionnaires with insufficient information. There were at least 8 respondents who filled the questionnaires incomplete. Fifth of all, there were imitations due to different age groups. It was aimed to have many respondents from different age groups but due to several factors it was not easily to have many respondents over 70 years old. For that reason, it was not possible to have many respondents that were over 70. Finally, it should be noted that the respondents were not paid so in other words they were asked to fill questionnaires without any payment. As a result of this, it was really up to the respondents good intentions to fill these questionnaires. In the following section of this work, the profile of the respondents of the questionnaires will be analyzed more deeply. 9

5. Literature Review There are academic sources that are related to this work and these sources have been used in this part of the work. First of all, it should be noted that if a company wants to compete with other competitors then the company has to be more global (Ohmae, 1989). Nevertheless, it is not very easy to be global due to several factors. There is definitely need for different adaptation patterns and the company has to adapt itself to different conditions and even cultures (Czinkota, 1995). At the same time, it is essential to meet specific choices and non-similar concerns of the consumers (Czinkota, 1995). It should be noted that, Mc Donald’s is one of the companies that has adapted itself to these specific choices and non-similar concerns of the consumers with the motto “think global, act local” (Vignali, 2001). As an example, Mc Donald’s had to even change its recipe of its most famous product in Israel. After many street protests, Mc Donald’s decided to serve Big Mac without cheese in several outlets by permitting the separation of meat and dairy products required of kosher restaurants (Vignali, 2001). Another example is from the Muslim countries, Mc Donald’s had to produce halal products after receiving heavy criticism from Muslim clerics (Vignali, 2001). For that reason, multinational corporations have to make changes in their rules and regulations if they want to enter new markets where there is significant rules and regulations. In other words, they need to be local if they want to expand global. As a matter of fact, there is a blend of the words “globalization” and “localization” used to identify a product or service that is promoted and delivered globally, but is also changed to accommodate the user or consumer in a local market (Shamsuddoha, 2008). Hence, this means that the product or service tailored to conform to local laws, customs or consumer preferences (Shamsuddoha, 2008). If the company has more “glocalized” products and services, the more interest this company will receive from its customers these products and services. As an example, Yahoo! has 25 different versions of its website with 25 different languages to receive more users all around the world (Shamsuddoha, 2008). These kind of examples can be found in many different multinational corporations since they want to expand to totally different markets worldwide. For that reason, it is possible to mention that multinational corporations face challenges of creating marketing and advertising programs capable of communicating effectively with a 10

diversity of target markets (Dumitrescu & Simona, 2010). In order to solve challenges, various frameworks are created and developed by the multinational marketers. Sometimes these frameworks come together with specific products. Teriyaki Burgers in Japan, Ayran (A yoghurt drink with salt and water) in Turkey, cold pasta in Italy are some of the examples of Mc Donald’s where the company has decided to produce “glocalized” products to adapt itself to the cultural needs in these countries (Vignali, 2001). Nevertheless, successful corporations has to develop a glocal strategy, by applying their global experiences and then developing their services and products in a way that suits to the local market which has to integrate with the variables of the marketing mix (Dumitrescu & Simona, 2010). Glocal strategies are sometimes top priority for successful multinationals because globalization is not viewed everywhere positively and there can be a negative image of globalization in different parts of the world. These negative factors related to globalization often challenge multinational corporations. Even though, globalization has positive outcomes such as economic integration worldwide but it can also cause problems among different cultures since there are disagreements in human relationships and extreme exploitation of natural resources (Shamsuddoha, 2008). Hence, this created anti-globalization movements worldwide. There are even theories which have antiglobalization in the center. One of these theories is Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of the Civilizations” theory. According to Huntington (1996), differences among civilizations are too basic in that civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition, and, most important, religion. As a matter of this, it is not possible to have only one world culture which will diminish the rest (Huntington, 1996). Globalization is making world smaller and the interaction between different civilizations are rising. These interactions can only create intensification of “civilization consciousness” (Huntington, 1996). Hence, this consciousness may result in clashes and conflicts as it can be seen in the recent examples from West and Middle East. Another famous theory that is opposed to globalization is McDonaldization of George Ritzer. According to (Ritzer, 2004), there is a process called as “grobalisation” as a result of globalization. “Grobalisation” and glocalization are opposed processes. “Grobalisation” can be defined as the imperialism of nations or multinationals to promote their values on other places 11

in the world (Ritzer, 2004). In addition to this, the main ambition of “grobalisation” is to see profits grow through independent homogenization (Ritzer, 2004). Different names such as “McDonaldization”, “Disneyization”, “Neo-colonialism”, etc. can also be used for “grobalisation” (Shamsuddoha, 2008). Furthermore, globalization is only used by multinationals for promoting the grobalisation of culture (Ritzer, 2004). In other words, all the different cultures will be deleted and one single global culture will be created by multinationals through globalization. As it can be seen from both of these theories, there are significant negative thoughts against globalization and multinationals. In particularly, conservative cultures and nations see globalization at the center of evil and this creates many challenges to multinationals for adapting into different markets. Hence, this creates some prerequisites for glocalization for it to be implemented in different nations by transnationals. There is the necessity to have some prerequisites such as reform of traditional diplomacy, peace and development, centrality of cultural issues, municipal governance, resource management, civil society and democratization, public funds, private resources, financial mechanisms, innovative sectors and capacity building (Shamsuddoha, 2008). Nevertheless, all of these do not have to exist for a multinational to implement glocalization strategy and it is possible to implement glocalization with some of these prerequisities (Shamsuddoha, 2008). Hence, Mc Donald’s is one of the multinationals that realized quite early that they were not selling burgers only (Crawford et al., 2015). The company was indeed selling Mc Donald’s experience through glocalization with their ability to brand globally but think locally (Crawford et al., 2015). In addition to this, Mc Donald’s was one of the first multinationals that realized very early that the possible route happiness amongst customers is through motivated and committed employees (Kaur, 2012). Mc Donald’s showed a lot of effort to understand their Indian consumers when they began their operations (Kaur, 2012). In other words, Mc Donald’s took the concept of “customer first” (Kaur, 2012). Consequently, Mc Donald’s was able to expand in developing countries such as India, China and Brazil. Another thing that Mc Donald’s realized very early is that the best way to promote the brand, is through becoming a sponsor for worldwide events. Mc Donald’s is one of the official sponsors of Olympics and the World Cup which are the two biggest events in the world 12

(Vignali, 2001). This was a highly costly decision for Mc Donald’s but it was actually one of the smartest moves of the company. The company paid almost 20 million British Pounds, only to have the right to use the logo of the World Cup (Vignali, 2001). This may sound way too much expensive but the promotion that Mc Donald’s was making during these international organizations is unthinkable. Around 2 billion people generally watch these international sports events and many people who were watching, were able to see Mc Donald’s promotions (Vignali, 2001). The long and the short of it is that, Mc Donald’s is one of the most successful multinational corporations even though there is a significant opposition. The company is using the essentials of marketing mix together with the concept of glocalization in order to enter and expand into various different markets worldwide. 13

6. Theoretical Framework The main objective is to analyze the means of the marketing strategy of McDonalds in Turkey. Marketing Mix has been used by many researchers to have a deeper analysis of different companies. Marketing Mix is a useful tool that makes it easier to define the marketing strategies of companies especially in the case of multinationals. Consequently, Marketing Mix will be used in this work to have a better and deeper analysis of the marketing strategy of Mc Donald’s in Turkey. 6.1. Marketing Mix It should be noted that, a company is using set of marketing tools to achieve success in the market. Hence, Marketing Mix which is also known as Four Ps is a set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market (Kotler, 2000). These Four Ps refer to Product, Price, Promotion and Place, almost each company use them for marketing management purposes. Each company is using different set of marketing tools and the number of Ps differ from company to company as well as case to case. At this point of the research, it is going to be useful to define what a brand is. The definition of brand differs in different works. For instance, a brand is a cycle of contributions linked to a title, mark, or sign associated with a product or service (Kotler, 2000). On the other hand, by other researchers a brand is seen as a name or a symbol (logo or trademark) which is intended to determine the goods or services of either one seller or a group of sellers and to set apart those goods or services from those of the competitors (Maurya & Mishra, 2012). Most of the brands are using different strategies while they are expanding in different markets. One of the classifications that can be noticed in these successful companies is called Four P (4P) as it is mentioned above. This classification is interrelated to the term “marketing mix”. Marketing Mix was first mentioned by Neil Borden in 1953 and Jerome McCarthy made the classification of 4P’s as Product, Price, Place and Promotion (Schewe, Charles D. & Hiam, 1998). In the past, there were 12 parameters rather than 4 but today mostly marketing mix is interrelated to 4Ps. Marketing mix defines the strategies and tactics a firm uses to reach target customers (Kotler, 2000). For that reason, the marketing mix framework claimed to ease for the innovations of CEOs as well as Marketing Managers of the companies (Schewe, Charles D. & Hiam, 1998). Innovations mean new strategies as well as ideas and implementations to have success and compete against the other companies that are rivals in the market (Saaksjarvi, 2003). Hence, 14

this makes “marketing mix” as an important model to company owners, managers, etc. Nevertheless, there have been so many alternative models that are created after the marketing mix model but still it is seen as one of the revolutionary models that has shaped many multinational corporations. Extended Marketing Mix and customer focused marketing mix model that is called as 4Cs model are some of the alternatives of this theory. Extended Marketing Mix is an upgraded version of this model and the model is based on 3 more Ps which is People, Process and Physical Evidence (Melewar & Saunders, 2000). People are important in this upgraded model since they are seen as main actors due to their involvement in consumption, process is the chain from producer to end users which are customers and physical evidence is the communication between managers and customers for the satisfaction of the customers (Melewar & Saunders, 2000). 4Cs model is based on customers and their preferences; commodity, cost, channel and communication are the 4 C’s of this model (Ramaraju, 2014). This model has been upgraded as well like 4Ps model. The upgraded version of this model is called as 7Cs model. 7Cs model include three more Cs which are Corporation, Consumer and Circumstances (Ramaraju, 2014). The biggest difference between 4P and 4C models is that demand and customers are in the core of 4C model but 4P model is more based on supply. Hence, it should not be forgotten that some essential steps need to be taken in order to succeed in business. For instance, development of a product that has specific characteristics creating customer demands as well as filling consumer’s needs, choosing a place that would certainly help to increase the sales of this product, pricing the product according to the value that customers get, promoting this product in a right way (Kotler, 2000). Some factors of marketing mix (product, place, promotion, and price) play more significant role than others. Mc Donald’s has corporate standards that its marketing mix applies globally. The company also uses some variations of its marketing mix to suit the local conditions of markets. When we look at the example of Turkey, Mc Donald’s promotion is based on visual media since there are many viewers in Turkey. Consequently, promotion of Mc Donald’s in Turkey has different set of means as well as values. Nevertheless

local" which is highly related to glocalization marketing strategy. Mc Donald's is using local assets, local services, local goods and even the company is producing special products for each country as a results of the glocalization marketing strategy. Turkey has a unique culture between the East and the West and it is one of the countries in